XL Photo Khrushchev Kunaev USSR Kazakhstan Virgin Land Campaign Tselina Rare 2

Description: Black and White matte photo made during Khrushchev's visit to Kazakhstan, 1961, the Virgin Lands campaign.The Soviet premier is welcomed by the local population of Alma-Ata, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan Dinmukhamed Kunaev and other politicians on this photo as well.Photo size 10.1/4” x 15.3/8” ( 39 cm x 26 cm).The photo was part of the album, there are Tracies of paper and glue on theft side on verso. The photo has some wears at the corners, 1” rip on the left side, low left corner has a bend, please see the images for condition.Rare.Not faded. Some information:When Stalin died in 1953, and Khrushchev became head of the communist party, he decided that if Soviet Union was going to be a superpower, then it needed to solve its agricultural problems; Khrushchev tried hard. USSR agricultural production in 1953 was not much higher than it had been in the 1920s, and corn was non-existent. There were also not enough farm animals, and mechanization was not very well along. Khrushchev also needed something to put against Malenkov's call for more consumer goods. So Khrushchev came up with the Virgin Lands and also the idea to promote corn cultivation. Khrushchev launched the Virgin Lands campaign in 1954.Instead of offering incentives to peasants already working in collective farms, Khrushchev planned to recruit workers for the new virgin lands by advertising the opportunity as a socialist adventure for Soviet youth. During the summer of 1954, 300,000 Komsomol volunteers traveled to the Virgin Lands.Following the rapid Virgin-Land cultivation and excellent harvest of 1954, Khrushchev raised the original goal of 13 million new hectares of land under cultivation by 1956 to between 28 and 30 million hectares (280,000–300,000 km2).Between the years 1954 and 1958 the Soviet Union spent 30.7 million rubles on the Virgin Lands campaign and during the same time the state procured 48.8 billion rubles worth of grain.From 1954 to 1960, the total sown area of land in the USSR increased by 46 million hectares, with 90% of the increase due to the Virgin Lands campaign.Overall, the Virgin Lands campaign succeeded in increasing production of grain and in alleviating food shortages in the short term. The enormous scale and initial success of the campaign were quite a historical feat. However, the wide fluctuations in grain output year to year, the failure of the Virgin Lands to surpass the record output of 1956, and the gradual decline in yields following 1959 mark the Virgin Lands campaign as a failure and surely fell short of Khrushchev’s ambition to surpass American grain output by 1960.In historical perspective, however, the campaign marked a permanent shift in the North-Kazakhstani economy. Even at the 1998 nadir, wheat was sown on almost twice as many hectares as in 1953, and Kazakhstan is currently one of the world's largest producers of wheat.

Price: 195 USD

Location: North York, Ontario

End Time: 2024-09-07T19:03:40.000Z

Shipping Cost: 28 USD